I-AM-HUMAN-DINOSAUR!

Today it is time that dinosaur friend wants to travel and is looking for a new home! Perhaps they can live with you?Here are rules - like or reblog all count as many times as you appear on the notes (only for real person blog and not a giveaway blog) - all people can enter, any country, follower or not, includes free dinotransport - must have ask open or some easy way to contact at the end (10th August) and give your address

The random number chosen person will get - small dinosaur friend - wearing green stripe hand knit sweater - plus small luggage bag for travel also hand made - perhaps a few other small accessories to make sure small friend settles well Friend does not have a name yet so if you win you can decide!

We will stop at 12pm lunch time UK time on 10th August and randomly find and contact who wins the same day probably. Any problems that last more than one day means we pick a new winner until a new home is found.

Perhaps important information is missing you would like to know? I am opening ask especially in case, but remember I am small and typing is hard so unless important may not answer many questions.

I cannot believe you wrote this in the tags of a post in which I specifically explained why this point of view is incorrect.

Forgive me everyone. I got less than 4 hours of sleep last night and any good energy I had I used up on my nephew who visited today. I am cranky, my eyes feel kind of like they’re going to pop out of my sockets, my head hurts, I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, and this was before I got mad, so, clearly, it’s not any better now. I also wrote out this post once before and lost it all. I already apologize for being rude, sarcastic, and impatient. it is not in my typical personality and I usually do explain scientific concepts nicely and patiently. However, I explained why this point of view is wrong in the original post that this person wrote this tag on, so I think I have a right to some impatience; I’m just probably going a little too far in my response and I am saying I’m sorry in advance.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way.

Life-offstage, you are apparently unable to be tagged, so let’s just hope to everything in the universe that you will see this. But your analogy is vastly incorrect and flawed on multiple levels.

First off, as I explained in this post, which admittedly you may not have seen, and isn’t common knowledge, so don’t beat yourself up about it, “reptile” is an antiquated term. Please use the term Sauropsida.

And, as I also say in that post, Linnaean classification is outdated, so I’m not even going to use those terms in my explanation, okay? Okay.

All organisms are divided into groups, in a process called cladistics. Those groups are given formal names and oftentimes informal names. They go from not very specific to extremely specific. Not very specific groups are divided into more specific groups; these latter groups are still, however, a part of the broader groups, and thus, can be considered part of them. These groups are organized based on evolutionary relationships. For example, Mammalia, or mammals, is defined as “all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of monotremes, marsupials, and placentals.” Note that Mammalia by its own definition has more groups within it. Almost all cladistic groups of organisms contain smaller groups within them.

Given this premise, let’s talk about apes. Apes are a group called Hominoidea. Everything in this group - including all smaller groups within it - are called Apes. Just like Hominoidea, a smaller group inside of Mammalia, are all mammals; and mammals are all Amniotes, and Amniotes are all Teleostomis (a fancy name for fish, kind of), and Teleostomis are all chordates, and chordates are all animals, and animals are all eukaryotes. Make sense so far? Great! You seem to have a basic understanding of this sub-dividing of groups concept given your acceptance that birds and dinosaurs are both “reptiles.”

Alright, back to apes. Apes are Hominoideans. Hominoideans are Apes. There are many groups within Hominoidea, but one that we’re interested in especially is Hominidae. These are the “Great Apes.” The Great Apes have another group within it as well - Homininae. Again, this group is a small fraction of Hominoidea; it is not all of Hominoidea, but it is still a part of Hominoidea. Anything in Homininae is, by definition, a part of Hominoidea. Homininae has many more groups, one of which is Hominini. Hominini also has many more groups - I mean there have been SO MANY ORGANISMS on our planet in its 4.6 BILLION YEARS OF HISTORY, are you really surprised? Neither am I! Within Hominini, there is the group Hominina. And, within Hominina, there is another group, Homo, as well as others. Within Homo? CONGRATULATIONS! YOU FIGURED IT OUT! YOU WIN THE GRAND PRIZE OF KNOWLEDGE. Within Homo is Homo sapiens, which is known as in laypeople terms humans. Homo sapiens = Humans. Humans are Homo sapiens. Given this, everything in the group known as Homo sapiens, which is humans, also belongs to every single group that Homo sapiens is a part of - which includes Hominoidea - which, as I stated earlier, is commonly known as “Apes.” Thus, humans are apes. Not all apes are humans, but all humans are apes.

As for bonobos, you’re right. Humans aren’t bonobos. Because they’re not part of the same group that includes just “bonobos.” That group is called Pan paniscus. Humans are very closely related to bonobos, however, humans are not a part of the Pan group, much less the Pan paniscus group. In fact, the last group that both bonobos and humans are a part of is Hominini; after that, bonobos go into Panina, while humans go into Hominina. But bonobos are a really specific group; like, extremely specific.

Dinosaurs are not like bonobos. Dinosaurs are a very, very, very, very, very broad group. They are defined as, as I said in the post you wrote these tags in, all of the descendants of the most recent common ancestor of Iguanodon and Megalosaurus. But let’s look at birds specifically like we looked at humans before. Dinosauria is divided into two main groups - Ornithischia and Saurischia. Saurischia is further divided, and the group we care about in this case is Eusaurischia. Then, that contains Theropoda. Theropoda contains Neotheropoda. Neotheropoda contains Averostra. Averostra contains Tetanurae. Tetanurae contains Orionides. Orionides contains Avetheropoda. Avetheropoda contains Coleurosauria. Coelurosauria contains Tyrannoraptora. Tyrannoraptora contains Maniraptoriformes. Maniraptoriformes contains Maniraptora. Maniraptora contains Pennaraptora. Pennaraptora contains Paraves. Paraves contains Eumaniraptora. Eumaniraptora contains Averaptora. Averaptora contains Avialae, which is the typical group that people call “birds”. Avialae contains everything from Archaeopteryx to the house sparrow.

Ergo, if you read all of that, Avialae - birds - is a very specific group of Dinosauria - dinosaurs - which means that every organism a part of Avialae is necessarily a part of Dinosauria, which means that every single damn bird is a dinosaur.

This is, however, what I said in the original post, so let me present to you more information on the subject. Yes, the video below works, I don’t know what’s up with the thumbnail.

We define groups based on evolutionary relationships. Anything descended from a group is a part of that group. Thus, birds, having descended from dinosaurs, are dinosaurs. The evidence is overwhelming. But besides the evidence that they are evolutionarily related, let’s look at how much they have in common, since most people think of classification groups of organisms in the Linnaean way - based on traits. Even though this is a flawed way of thinking, I will entertain it. You can look all of this up; I only provided a link for the feather one.

All birds have feathers. You know what feathers were? An ancestral trait of dinosaurs. No, not every dinosaur had feathers, but they were a trait of the common ancestor to all of them, and it is far more likely that more dinosaurs had some sort of feather like integument than not.

Dinosaurs had respiratory systems much like birds - as evidenced by finding evidence for respiratory systems like birds in sauropodomorphs, a group fairly distantly related from birds.

Dinosaurs were probably close to endothermic - it varied from group to group, but the trait evolved in dinosaurs, not in birds.

Dinosaurs were not all huge. In fact, the vast majority of non-avian dinosaurs weren’t all that big - we just remember the big ones because they were so different from animals we see today.

Many species of birds are extinct. Saying that “dinosaurs are extinct, birds are not” is a ridiculous statement. By that logic, any extinct bird - including the passenger pigeon - is not actually a bird.

Dinosaurs had complex social behaviors, from caring for their young to social groups, much like birds. They also behaved much like birds - some dinosaurs have been found in postures much like that of the sleeping posture of birds; and in nesting behaviors such as that of birds. Many dinosaurs closely related to birds - the theropods - used gizzard stones, like birds, to grind up food.

Dinosaurs were, admittedly, typically like crocodiles in terms of intelligence - however, many reached the bird range, making “dinosaurs were dumb” a ridiculous statement.

Dinosaurs, like birds, had low-density bones - they were filled with Haversian canals, or microscopic tubes that allowed blood vessels and nerves to travel through the bone, making them more lightweight.

The dinosaurs most closely related to birds - theropods - have similar skeletal structures to birds, including posture, limb structure, and other features such as scutes on the feet.

Many dinosaurs could glide; given that Archaeopteryx and other early birds might not have been able to fly themselves - and many modern birds have secondary flightlessness - defining birds as “animals with feathers that can fly” leaves out many birds. But, gliding and flight did have their start in non-avian dinosaurs.

The evolution of wings in birds matches up with the wings evolved in such animals as Microraptor and Velociraptor, right down to the digits that are lengthened in the wing - oh yeah, a lot of non-avian dinosaurs had wings.

Dinosaurs and birds have an amazing amount in common. So much so, in fact, that to call birds not dinosaurs would be to deny their similarities. There is no fundamental difference between Troodon and Anchiornis that makes one “OMG SUCH A DINOSAUR” and the other “OMG SUCH A BIRD.” They are, in fact, remarkably similar; if they were living side by side today, you would put both of them in the same group as much as you would put bottlenose dolphins and spinner dolphins in the same group.

Birds. Are. Dinosaurs.

And, let’s get to that word, belief - amazing - it’s almost as if you think that your personal opinion matters more than the scientific consensus. Once again, yes, evidence could come to light that dinosaurs and birds are not evolutionarily related - however, if you’ve actually read this tome, it’s pretty clear that it would take some serious, incontrovertible evidence to prove that birds did not descend from dinosaurs. There is no other group of animals that so closely resemble birds and that have a lineage in the fossil record that clearly show the ancestor to bird transition. None. None at all. And every day we’re getting more evidence linking the two groups.

But, given all of this data I’ve thrown at you, I get the feeling you won’t listen. You still will say that you don’t believe it. Your point of view - your opinion - is unimportant. I’m sorry. It sucks to hear that, doesn’t it? Our society places much importance on bias and opinion that we begin to think that opinions are facts. This is untrue.

Now, science is open to bias. Science is open to mistakes. But usually this has to do with

People - people can be biased due to things like racism, sexism, corporate ties, etc. while doing research, and thus skew their results in research about people and things pertaining to them, such as medicine

Corporate ties in general - such as in molecular biology research, the push to find a new drug that can treat something can often skew results

Personal opinion - believing that your own ideas have to be correct, and skewing results to meet this idea.

Now, paleontologists are not immune to personal bias. I’m not saying that at all. But at this point, very few paleontologists deny that birds are a group of dinosaurs. Those that do, clearly use bias and terrible science in order to prove it - and have been largely ignored by the greater paleontological community. Even paleontologists that loathe each other and disagree about so many things - I’m looking at you, Robert Bakker and Jack Horner - AGREE ABOUT THIS.

Thus, while the idea that “birds are dinosaurs” is not fact, because nothing in science is fact - it’s a well supported idea with an amazing amount of data behind it that might as well be fact. No matter what you believe after reading this post, that’s not going to change. Your opinion has much less data backing it up and much less scientific consensus behind it than the idea that birds are dinosaurs does.

Birds are dinosaurs. Get over it. Also, humans are apes. I literally have not met a single person who’s tried to make that claim before, it’s ridiculous.

I apologize for being rude. In my defense, you were rude first - tagging that on a post where I specifically talk about how annoyed I was that I constantly have to explain everything in this post to people and then denying the short explanation I gave was exceptionally rude and ignorant and has me doubting your ability to read.

TL;DR: Your opinion has less data backing it up than the scientific consensus; thus it is irrelevant. Birds are dinosaurs, and for that matter, humans are apes. Don’t waste my time again.